The current problem stems from the fact that telecommunications to a particular user is fragmented between companies, each having a different jurisdictional function. Thus, a local telephone operating company (or local exchange carrier or local carrier), such as GTE, is connected to the actual end user and provides local telecommunications services. The end user, however, has a choice of long distance telecommunication carriers (or interexchange carriers), such as AT&T. Typically, it is the local operating company who has responsibility for providing the communication circuits to the end user and who must maintain those circuits in proper working order. In order to accomplish this function the local operating company receives from the long distance carriers information pertaining to troubles (or other situations) relating to various end user equipment.
Presently, because of Regulatory Constraints, this communication between networks is handled across jurisdictional boundaries by a telephone call. Thus, the company believing a problem to exist with equipment of another company first attempts to identify the geographical area of the country where the problem exists. A record is made of the trouble at the sending company. A telephone call is then placed to an operator at the troubled company and the identified problem, including the circuit identification, is voice communicated to the receiving operator. The receiving operator then keys the received information into the system for local processing.
At best, the above-described present procedure is slow and costly. At worst, there are at least two points where information can be lost or miskeyed since two different people are entering the same information into different networks. If the miskeyed information is, for example, the address of the end user, then a service call is made to the wrong address, again a waste of resources, with the result that time is lost in restoring telecommunications services.
The problem is compounded by several factors. First, within the local operating company there are several different centers for trouble control and for administration of circuits in general. Thus, while a trouble report may be handled in one center in one part of the country, a billing or collection problem will be handled from a different, geographically remote, center. A service restoral or added customer equipment request may be handled from a third geographically remote site. This is even further compounded in that the same type of situation, i.e., a trouble condition, could be handled from several different locations.
A second level of problem comes from the fact that a long distance carrier also may gather its trouble reports or other data from different centers spaced at different locations. Thus different operators can become involved in making the trouble reports.
A third level of complexity is added when it is understood that all such administrative data pertaining to trouble reports, billing and collection, equipment changes, etc., must be communicated in a tower of babel world where complex support networks are designed and maintained by different companies, and where the administrative networks of each company are organized according to individual requirements which are not uniform from company to company. Thus, the internal data communications between the various parts of each network are different and perhaps even proprietary in nature for each company.
In addition to having different data structures, the various companies each have different forms for the information, and often different names for the same pieces of information. Accordingly, sending administrative data, such as trouble reports, between jurisdictional carriers on an automatic basis is not currently practical. It is also not very practical to have all of the carriers modify their report structures or languages to achieve compatibility. The cost and logistics make such an approach out of the question.
Thus, it is one object of this invention to provide a system and method for communicating administrative data between diverse communication systems where each such communication system contains its own internal protocols, automatically without requiring any system to change its internal protocols.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a system and method which will allow a sending communication system to gather packages of administrative data having a first protocol and to deliver that data over a switched or dedicated network to a receiving communication system having a second protocol.
It is a still further object of this invention to provide such a system and method where the receiving system can process the administrative data from the sending system and return timely responses pertaining to the status of the inquiry contained within the administrative data.
It is a still further object of this invention to provide a system and method at a service providing telecommunication system operated by a first company for receiving administrative data from a second service providing company wherein the administrative data pertains to circuitry provided by the first company for use by the second company and wherein the protocols for internally handling such administrative data are different for each company and wherein the provided system and method preserves the internal protocols of each such company's system.